DSI PER (Poly Evolver Rack) vs. DSI Tetra

[lewdie]

I've been doing some research on my next synth purchase and am torn between the PER and the Tetra. Has anyone spent time on both of these and care to share an opinion?

[Stab Frenzy]

Soundwise, file under Evolver vs Mopho. Interface wise the Tetra is a lot better, I was going to buy a PER years ago but it was pretty much impossible to program it from the front panel. Well not impossible but very boring.

What you want will depend a lot on what sounds you want to get, the Evolvers real power is in the digital waves, the tuned feedback, the distortion and the delays, and how all these things interact with the analogue filter. The Mopho and Tetra are missing all these bits and just have the analogue side, but if you're just after analogue then that's what you want.

[gosh]

I was recently VERY close to selling my mono evolver keyboard and getting a tetra - i wanted a bit more portability for live sets. I was going back and forth as didn't want to regret losing the evolver keys with it's fantastic knob per function feature set for the limited function of tetra. However, USB and 4 part multi-timbral action nearly swung it for. I was however, confused about how the tetra acted multi-timbrally. I'd assumed you could use it like a standard multi-timbral synth (or my experience of them) ie. assign the different midi channels to different patches and then from the synth itself scroll through the midi-channels, tweak away, change patch etc then move to next midi-channel and do the same (this is how my blofeld desktop works). With the tetra however, as soon as you put it in multi-timbral mode you lose ALL front panel functionaility and have to send all data from DAW or external sequencer. You can use Combo mode to have different sounds on different voices but you can only trigger there sequences as i understand it. ie, you can't go to midi channel 1, lay down a bline, go to midi channel 2, put a lead line in, goto midi channel 3 and put in some squeeks etc. That made it of limited use for the way I wanted to use it.
In the end the guy i was selling my MEK to got a better deal and I think that was a good thing for me!

[de raaf]

invest in a good midicontroller too get the best out if it, if you don't like to work with softeditors the whole time

i have a mek and love it (and a lot has to do with being hands on) thinking about a tetra too soon or later, but that means also to invest i very good midicontroller, which can uselfull for other stuff too.

still find it weird there aren't real tetra sampels on the dsi site yet (mainly like to hear poly or combo etc sounds)

[GeneralBigbag]

I hope the Tetra sells well enough to get DSI to think about a tabletop box polyevolver.

[Stab Frenzy]

I hope the Tetra sells well enough to get DSI to think about a tabletop box polyevolver.

That would be nice, but I'd rather see them move on to a sample based synth, with the Evolver architecture (maybe lose the analogue oscs) and user samples of a decent length. Shouldn't be too hard to implement at all if there were to go for a Prophet 2000 type thing, just with a much improved interface.

[de raaf]

yeah like a modern vs like synth
2 wavetable osc + two sample osc curtis filter + maybe some digital filters that you can use in parallel or serial, a more advanced arp, their usual seq, ...
woud defiantly buy it

[masstronaut]

With the tetra however, as soon as you put it in multi-timbral mode you lose ALL front panel functionaility and have to send all data from DAW or external sequencer. You can use Combo mode to have different sounds on different voices but you can only trigger there sequences as i understand it. ie, you can't go to midi channel 1, lay down a bline, go to midi channel 2, put a lead line in, goto midi channel 3 and put in some squeeks etc.

Wot?

What does "only trigger there sequences" mean?

Do you really lose front panel control when it's in Combo mode? Maybe you do, but there isn't that much control anyway and presumably you can still use the editor software or a controller box, right?

[gosh]

With the tetra however, as soon as you put it in multi-timbral mode you lose ALL front panel functionaility and have to send all data from DAW or external sequencer. You can use Combo mode to have different sounds on different voices but you can only trigger there sequences as i understand it. ie, you can't go to midi channel 1, lay down a bline, go to midi channel 2, put a lead line in, goto midi channel 3 and put in some squeeks etc.

Wot?

What does "only trigger there sequences" mean?

Do you really lose front panel control when it's in Combo mode? Maybe you do, but there isn't that much control anyway and presumably you can still use the editor software or a controller box, right?

Right, sorry, for starters I meant "only trigger their sequences" not there! Poor english never helps any statement

What I meant by this statement (and I should qualify it with the fact I now own a tetra) is that the combo mode and multi-mode are separate. Combo mode allows you to play 4 sounds (or their sequences) from a single midi channel. The alternative is multi-mode which operates like a true multi-timbral synth where you can have a different patch/program on each midi channel and you can switch to different midi-channels to play the different sounds..say, a baseline on midi channel 1, a lead on channel 2, etc etc. You CAN do this BUT when you use the synth in this way the front panel becomes useless - you have to operate every parameter from an external sequencer. I tried with my MPC and it does work but it means you can't see the names of the programs on each channel or the parameters that you are changing as the tetra screen doesn't update in this mode.

That said, with the normal program mode you could probably do some clever things with keyboard splits to do similar..I haven't actually tried this yet though.

Despite these possible comprimises the tetra sounds lovely! I love it and I'm leaning more to having patches play as MASSIVE unison patches (sometimes all detuned) which with the sub ocs are bloody huge!

I got a very good price on my MEK (which I do miss) but I got a novation remote sl and have been midi mapping and can tweak most parameters succesfully without need for the editor (which works bloody well with the USB btw!). Got a load more parameters to map but spend my time noodling with the sounds at the moment rather than midi-mapping. Hnvae't really delved into combo mode too much yet but got that all to come!